The next Economics Seminar of Paris-Saclay will be held on Thursday, November 10, from 12h15 to 13h15. Guillaume Vuillemey (HEC) will present his paper “Evading Corporate Responsibilities: Evidence from the Shipping Industry”.
Abstract: I show that the maritime shipping industry – handling above 80\% of global trade flows – has evolved over the past decades to systematically evade “corporate responsibilities,” i.e., compliance with regulatory standards and potential tort liabilities. Shipping firms increasingly dissociated legal and ultimate ownership, fragmented assets in one-ship subsidiaries, used flags of convenience, and evaded end-of-life responsibilities with “last-voyage flags.” Microeconomic tests confirm that responsibility evasion, amidst global competition, is a dominant motive behind these patterns. These findings have implications for our understanding of corporate social responsibility, of extended forms of liability, and of the “dark side” of globalization.
Link to the seminar web page: https://sites.google.com/view/sem-econ-saclay/home